I was just wondering if one is better than the other to get new accounts. I have seen some companies send out these pretty nice looking direct mailers and I would think they would get alot of return on their investment for that, but then I was thinking that most of them come out at the beginning of the season. So maybe its better to do flyers now? or maybe door hangers? any thoughts?

Lawn Magic

06-07-2003, 12:22 PM

I like the idea of direct mail as a way to jump-start a new crew. I plan to use this next time I add a new crew. I am also considering trying some kind of introductory incentive to maximize the return of the mailing. Direct mail allows you to add customers only to the areas that you target in your mailing**a major advantage.
So far, I have only used classified ads in the Professional/Business directory to generate new customers. With this, I spend on average about $20 per new customer. (or about 15 new customers over the period of a 30 day ad) The main advantage of this approach is flexibility, but the main disadvantage is that the response is random over the entire market area.
After generating new customers, we occasionally pass out flyers to approximately a dozen properties adjacent to the new customer's property. This had been very successful for us, because we are able to service multiple properties on many of the &quot;Stops&quot; on our routes. In fact, we have only a few single property stops remaining. We average between 3 and 4 properties/stop with a maximum of 8 properties on one of our stops.
Since this reduces our average drive and unloading/loading time it has reduced our costs significantly. Servicing several properties on one Stop also allows improved equipment/labor utilization. Through these savings in time, we have been able to increase our total daily production rate.
I will be adding a &quot;Wish List&quot; item requesting the accommodation of this &quot;Route-Stop&quot; concept to the Gopher Program.

Weed Eater

06-07-2003, 01:58 PM

I never thought of that! I had seen scapers put ads in the paper before in the service section, but I ditdnt think it would work so i hanent done it. Now I think i just might try it. Oh and i never thought about handing out flyers like that either, #### thats a great idea i am gonna do that too! thanks!